


Low Maintenance

by roebling



Series: B.A.P Shortfic [1]
Category: B.A.P, K-pop
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-20
Updated: 2012-10-20
Packaged: 2017-11-16 17:01:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/541796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roebling/pseuds/roebling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jongup tries to find the perfect pet for Zelo.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Low Maintenance

**Author's Note:**

> (First in a series of short, gen, canon-based B.A.P fics. Not beta-ed or edited.)

Jongup isn’t let in ahead of time on what the hyungs have planned.

It’s okay, really. They’re good hyungs, and he doesn’t need to know everything. 

But they don’t tell him, so when they get home from recording for a music program and the little tank where Froggy lived is empty, he’s just as surprised as Junhong is.

“Where did he go?” Junhong’s eyes are huge, and his mouth is open.

Jongup frowns. “Maybe he jumped out.” He leans forward, peers into the murky green water, taps on the translucent plastic.

“Maybe,” Junhong says. His voice sounds shaky. It’s easy to forget sometimes that he’s still just a kid. Right now he looks like he wants a hug. Or his mom.

“We’ll find him,” Jongup says, trying hard to sound confident. “Come on. I’ll help you.”

Jongup is on his hand and knees looking under the table when he hears laughter. He sits up to look, and whacks his head.

The laughter gets louder.

“Jonguppie, how’s your head?” Daehyun hyung is smiling.

Jongup rubs it. “It hurts,” he says honestly. 

“What were you doing under there, anyway?” Youngjae hyung asks. 

“My frog is gone,” Junhong says. “He’s helping me look.”

Youngjae and Daehyun look at each other. They’re both grinning. 

Youngjae’s eyes crinkle in a smile. “Ohhh,” he says. “Well, good luck, you two.”

Junhong frowns. “You’re not going to help?”

Daehyun puts a hand on his shoulder. “Sorry, Junhonggie. We’ve got vocal lessons.”

They grab their sweatshirts and head out the door. Jongup can hear them laughing as they go.

They don’t find the frog, of course. Himchan reveals the dastardly plot later that night. Junhong bears it well, but his eyes are suspiciously glassy and red.

Jongup doesn’t blame the hyungs, exactly. It’s true that with their schedules Junhong didn’t have time to care for Froggy the way he should have, and it’s also true that the water in the tank turned green and stank up their little dorm badly.

Still … flushing him down the toilet … that seems a bit harsh, really.

“You should have taken him to a pond and set him free, hyungs.”

Yongguk hyung and Himchan hyung stare at him, bemused.

“Ah, Jonguppie,” Yongguk says. “Really, the frog will be fine.”

“Where were we supposed to find a pond anyway?” Himchan grumbles.

Froggy (R.I.P) doesn’t come up again, except once in a while when Junhong wants to guilt the hyungs into letting him go skateboarding instead of clean the dorm. 

Jongup doesn’t forget, though. He knows how much Junhong wanted a pet. Maybe a frog just wasn’t the best choice. A dog is what he’d like, if he could pick, but that would never work in the dorms. A cat would be nice too — a sweet kitty that would curl up next to them while they watched television. But a cat meant a litter box that they didn’t have time to keep clean. Hamsters were fun, but they were smelly (and he thinks it was the smell that was Froggy’s downfall). Birds scare Jongup.

Finally, though, he has a brilliant idea. One precious free afternoon when the others are watching television or playing computer games or just sleeping he puts on a hoodie and heads out to a flower market. There are so many plants there — some with bright blossoms and some with glossy leaves. Jongup picks one out with purple flowers on delicate stems. Like Junhong, it’s tall (and kind of pretty). 

“Excuse me, how much is this one?”

The ajumma who runs the booth frowns at him. “Forty thousand won,” she says. “Are you sure you know how to take care of a Phalaenopsis, son?”

"Is it hard?"

“Extremely,” she says.

Jongup frowns. “Oh,” he says. “Um, do you have any that are easier to take care of?”

He escapes only after listening to her lecture on the care of orchids for a half an hour.

When he gets back to the dorm, it’s quiet. Himchan is asleep on the couch. Youngjae is sitting at the kitchen table with his iPad. The others aren’t around.

Jongup goes into the bedroom. Junhong is there, sitting at the desk chewing the end of a pencil, doing schoolwork, like Jongup should have spent his afternoon doing.

He clears his throat. “Hey,” he says. “I got you something.”

Junhong looks up, his eyes round. 

Jongup reaches into his backpack. The woman at the flower market had laughed at him when he asked her if she had any gift wrapping, but in the end she found some blue tissue paper and some string somewhere in her stall.

He hands the little package to Junhong. “Be careful …”

Junhong unwraps it. The tiny cactus is grey, and squat, and not very pretty. Junhong stares.

“It’s not a frog,” Jongup says quickly. “Or a puppy dog. Or even something with nice flowers. But the woman says you only need to water it once a month.” He smiles.

Junhong smiles too. He gets to his feet and gives Jongup a quick, award hug. “Thank you, Jongup hyung.” He sets the cactus on the window sill. “It’s perfect.”

It’s not, really. Jongup knows that. But Junhong is tentatively petting the cactus with one careful finger. It’s not perfect, but it’s good enough to make Junhong smile, and that’s good enough.


End file.
